John Kani

South African police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of black mourners marching from a funeral for riot victims to a cemetery in strife-ridden eastern Cape Province. A black reporter who witnessed the march outside Port Elizabeth estimated that about half the 15,000 mourners could not proceed to the burial service. The authorities did not interrupt another funeral in the area for Xolile Kani, 26, youngest brother of internationally known actor John Kani.

Many people know that Nelson Mandela's life inspired novels, poems, plays and films, but few people know how powerful his effect on the theater was and how powerful the theater's effect was on him. The theater served as a mirror to Mandela, each side influencing and reflecting the other, placing them both in time. At the height of the apartheid era, the Market Theater in Johannesburg and the Space Theatre in Cape Town, both defiantly nonracial venues in a racially divided country, produced shattering plays about black life under the apartheid regime.

Many people know that Nelson Mandela's life inspired novels, poems, plays and films, but few people know how powerful his effect on the theater was and how powerful the theater's effect was on him. The theater served as a mirror to Mandela, each side influencing and reflecting the other, placing them both in time. At the height of the apartheid era, the Market Theater in Johannesburg and the Space Theatre in Cape Town, both defiantly nonracial venues in a racially divided country, produced shattering plays about black life under the apartheid regime.

Playwright John Kani sets his South African drama "Nothing but the Truth" in the year 2000, a decade after the repeal of apartheid and four years into a process of assessing human rights abuses committed during the bloodiest years of the nation's racially discriminatory laws. This investigation is overseen by the new government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission -- a name that, fortuitously, encodes the themes in Kani's play, being given its West Coast premiere at the Mark Taper Forum.

Playwright John Kani sets his South African drama "Nothing but the Truth" in the year 2000, a decade after the repeal of apartheid and four years into a process of assessing human rights abuses committed during the bloodiest years of the nation's racially discriminatory laws. This investigation is overseen by the new government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission -- a name that, fortuitously, encodes the themes in Kani's play, being given its West Coast premiere at the Mark Taper Forum.

During the angry years of apartheid, Athol Fugard tried to avoid black immigration agents when he entered the U.S. "I'd look for a kind face, on a white immigration official," says the celebrated playwright, who is white. He was trying to prevent any trouble over his despised South African passport. Fugard tells this story to his former colleague and fellow South African John Kani, who immediately reacts with his own passport story.

You don't need to know much about apartheid-era South Africa to feel for a man like Sipho. Abandoned by the wife he loves, he works hard, raises his children and tries to shield them as his black township is swept into the movement against apartheid.

Athol Fugard's choice of the La Jolla Playhouse for the first West Coast presentation of his latest play, "My Children! My Africa!," may come as something of a surprise to the theater community. Given both his and the Market Theatre's many previous associations with Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum and its artistic director, Gordon Davidson, La Jolla's announcement last week that it had wooed the play to its stage in July is a testament to tenacity and the powers of direct contact.

October 28, 1987 | Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation's press

A rare chance for Johannesburg audiences to see a black actor in a play (John Kani as the Moor inShakespeare's "Othello") bore unexpected results. The New York Times reports that the play's recent five-week run at the Market Theater fostered the lively debate on political and racial issues expected by the downtown theater's customarily white audiences--and also brought blacks into the theater in record numbers, with audiences averaging 40% black.

T he following are capsule reviews of this week's screenings at the AFI Film Festival of Los Angeles. Screenings take place at the Los Feliz Theater, 1822 N. Vermont Ave., Hollywood, except where noted. Tickets and information: (213) 520-2000 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. THURSDAY "Saturday Night at the Palace" (South Africa, 1986, 5:30 p.m.).

During the angry years of apartheid, Athol Fugard tried to avoid black immigration agents when he entered the U.S. "I'd look for a kind face, on a white immigration official," says the celebrated playwright, who is white. He was trying to prevent any trouble over his despised South African passport. Fugard tells this story to his former colleague and fellow South African John Kani, who immediately reacts with his own passport story.

You don't need to know much about apartheid-era South Africa to feel for a man like Sipho. Abandoned by the wife he loves, he works hard, raises his children and tries to shield them as his black township is swept into the movement against apartheid.

South African police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of black mourners marching from a funeral for riot victims to a cemetery in strife-ridden eastern Cape Province. A black reporter who witnessed the march outside Port Elizabeth estimated that about half the 15,000 mourners could not proceed to the burial service. The authorities did not interrupt another funeral in the area for Xolile Kani, 26, youngest brother of internationally known actor John Kani.